Journal of Sleep Research
April 13, 2022
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Maurizio Gorgoni et al.
64 citations
Dream research has moved beyond the simple REM-NREM sleep dichotomy to focus on specific brain features that predict dreaming. Trait-like factors (stable personal characteristics) and state-like factors (electrophysiological activity just before awakening) both influence dream recall. Dreaming connects to waking life: the continuity hypothesis suggests dreams can be modulated by sensory stimulations. Parasomnia episodes may offer direct access to dream content, as recent findings show greater concordance between such events and dream narratives. Nightmares and oneiric activity hold potential clinical value in psychotherapy. Future work needs uniform protocols, advanced manipulation techniques, clarification of parasomnia-dream links, and determination of dreams' clinical relevance.
Nature and Science of Sleep
January 1, 2018
Anastasia Mangiaruga, Serena Scarpelli, Chiara Bartolacci et al.
40 citations
Brain and sleep maturation change across life stages, and dream generation and recall depend on neural development. This review examines dreaming in infancy, adulthood, and old age, assessing whether dream mentation reflects underlying brain activity and cognitive processes. In children, weak evidence links cognitive skills to dream features, but infantile amnesia, confabulation, and limited language are confounding factors. In adults, evidence suggests shared neural mechanisms between waking cognition and dream features. Elderly people commonly report lower dream recall frequency, attributed to diminished interest or possibly age-related cognitive decline. The authors note a lack of longitudinal psychophysiological studies and recommend future research collecting dream reports upon awakening with neurobiological and cognitive measures.
Journal of Sleep Research
February 1, 2022
Serena Scarpelli, Maurizio Gorgoni, Valentina Alfonsi et al.
37 citations
During the Italian COVID-19 lockdown, 90 participants kept a sleep-dream diary for two weeks: the first week under full lockdown and the second week after restrictions eased. Compared to post-lockdown, the lockdown period was associated with more awakenings, greater difficulty falling asleep, higher dream recall, and more frequent lucid dreams. After restrictions eased, participants reported more dreams about being in crowded places. Poorer sleep quality during lockdown aligns with earlier findings. The increase in lucid dreams during confinement may reflect an attempt to cope with pandemic experiences, while the crowded-place dreams after lockdown support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming.
Brain Sciences
February 11, 2021
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Maurizio Gorgoni et al.
27 citations
Dream research has advanced significantly over the last twenty years through neuroimaging and electrophysiological techniques. Mental activity during sleep and wakefulness shares similar neural bases. Dream experience is promoted by brain activation with reduced low frequencies and increased rapid frequencies. The posterior parietal area and prefrontal cortex are responsible for dream experience. Dreaming can be manipulated by sensory stimulations that incorporate specific cues into dream scenarios. Transcranial stimulation techniques have modulated consciousness during sleep, adding information about neural correlates of dream recall. The continuity and activation hypotheses provide growing understanding of neural processes underlying dreaming, but issues remain regarding state-/trait-like variables, circadian and homeostatic factors, and parasomnia-like events.
Brain Sciences
October 20, 2021
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Maurizio Gorgoni et al.
23 citations
During the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, people reported lower dream recall, fewer nightmares, less frequent lucid dreams, and reduced emotional intensity in dreams compared to the first wave. Dreams during the second wave had a more negative tone. Changes in dream frequency between the two waves were linked to post-traumatic growth, sleep-related PTSD symptoms, and sleep quality. Emotional features of dreams correlated with pandemic-related factors such as job changes, forced quarantine, having infected relatives or friends, and seeking mental health help. The findings partly support the continuity hypothesis, which links dream content to waking experiences.
May 16, 2023
William Wong, Kátia C. Andrade, Thomas Andrillon et al.
21 citations
preprint
A new open-access database, DREAM, combines sleep magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) recordings with standardized dream reports to enable large-scale neurocognitive research on dreaming. The initial release includes 20 datasets from 561 participants and 2649 awakenings, each with at least 20 seconds of high-frequency M/EEG data and a classification of the subject's experience. Analyses demonstrate that features extracted from EEG can predict whether a person reports having had a conscious experience during both REM and NREM sleep. The database aims to overcome the limitations of small sample sizes and methodological variability in dream research, allowing new questions to be addressed at a scale unattainable by individual labs.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Anita D'Anselmo et al.
18 citations
During the Italian COVID-19 lockdown, people with narcolepsy type-1 (NT1) reported more lucid dreams than matched controls, and those lucid dreams were linked to greater creativity and problem-solving during waking hours. The study compared 43 NT1 patients with 86 controls. NT1 patients had higher sleepiness, while controls had more sleep disturbances—a difference that disappeared after accounting for medication. Among NT1 patients, nightmare frequency correlated with female gender, longer sleep, and more wakefulness within sleep; dream recall, nightmares, and lucid dreams all correlated with sleepiness. The findings confirm a connection between lucidity and creativity in NT1 but cannot establish causality due to the small sample and cross-sectional design.
Nature and Science of Sleep
August 1, 2022
Brigitte Holzinger, Franziska Nierwetberg, Frances Chung et al.
16 citations
High nightmare frequency (≥1–2 nights/week) rose from 13.24% to 22.35% during the COVID-19 pandemic. Factors associated with high nightmare frequency included self-reported post-traumatic stress symptoms (OR=2.11), other mental disorders, sleep problems, financial burden, confinement, having had COVID-19, and work situation. Post-traumatic stress symptoms partly mediated the relationship between pandemic-related stressors and nightmare frequency. The authors conclude that the pandemic caused traumatization in a substantial proportion of society and suggest that health care workers screen for nightmares as an indicator of post-traumatic stress symptoms and other disorders.
Nature Communications
August 13, 2025
William Wong, Rubén Herzog, Kátia Cristine Andrade et al.
10 citations
A new open database, the DREAM database, combines standardized sleep magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) recordings with dream reports from 505 participants across 20 datasets, totaling 2,643 awakenings. Each awakening includes at least 20 seconds of high-resolution sleep EEG (≥100 Hz, ≥2 electrodes) and a classification of the sleeper's reported experience. Analyses showed that reports of conscious experiences during sleep can be predicted from objective EEG features in both REM and NREM sleep. The database aims to overcome limitations of small sample sizes and methodological variability in dream research, enabling larger-scale investigations of the neurocognitive basis of dreaming.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
March 24, 2022
Maurizio Gorgoni, Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi et al.
7 citations
Dream activity significantly shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a sample of 108 participants revealing reduced dream frequency from 43% during total lockdown to 22% post-lockdown. Emotional intensity and vividness also declined, with fear remaining the dominant emotion in dreams (26.9% at lockdown, 22.2% post-lockdown). Despite improved sleep latency and fewer PTSD-related disruptions post-lockdown, poor sleep quality and high anxiety persisted. These findings suggest that the pandemic's emotional toll continues to shape our dreams, supporting the continuity hypothesis.
Nature and Science of Sleep
January 1, 2023
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Milena Camaioni et al.
3 citations
Dream recall, nightmares, lucid dreams, and emotional intensity all decreased between the first and third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in a large Italian sample. People whose general psychological distress improved during that period reported fewer nightmares and less nightmare distress than those whose distress stayed the same or worsened. Poor sleep hygiene was a strong predictor of nightmare distress among the group that did not improve. The findings suggest that people adapted to the pandemic over time and that nightmares are closely tied to well-being, with both stable traits (age, sex) and sleep-related factors influencing nightmare features.
Journal of Sleep Research
August 1, 2025
Marta Spinoni, Serena Scarpelli, Ilaria Di Pasquale Benedetti et al.
2 citations
Pregnant women often experience heightened dream recall, which can serve as a mechanism for emotional regulation. In a study of 118 women in their first trimester, increased depressive symptoms correlated with more frequent nightmares and distress from those dreams. Notably, higher levels of alexithymia—difficulty identifying emotions—predicted greater nightmare frequency and distress. Additionally, unplanned pregnancies were linked to increased nightmare distress. These findings suggest that addressing emotional regulation could be crucial for supporting maternal mental health during pregnancy.
Oxford University Press eBooks
May 22, 2025
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Luigi de Gennaro
1 citation
Nightmare disorder is a REM parasomnia that causes distressing dreams and significant impairment. This chapter reviews diagnostic criteria, neural correlates, and lifespan changes, noting common comorbidities including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicidality, anxiety, and personality disorders. The authors discuss therapeutic strategies and propose that nightmares may serve as a reliable index of well-being, arguing this research area warrants further investigation. Suggestions for future studies are offered.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
May 21, 2025
Valentina Elce, Giorgia Bontempi, Serena Scarpelli et al.
1 citation
preprint
Dreams are shaped by both stable individual traits and major external events. A large adult cohort provided dream and wakefulness reports alongside demographic, psychometric, cognitive, and sleep measures. Natural language processing revealed semantic features that distinguish dream from wakefulness reports, with this distinction significantly modulated by individual-specific factors. Longitudinal and cross-sample analyses showed that the COVID-19 pandemic left lasting traces on dream content. The findings highlight a dynamic interplay between personal characteristics and external events in shaping dream experiences, offering insights into the cognitive and emotional architecture of dreaming.
Nature and Science of Sleep
January 1, 2025
Serena Scarpelli, Marta Spinoni, Maurizio Gorgoni et al.
1 citation
Pregnant women in their first trimester experience fewer nightmares than non-pregnant counterparts, with 100 participants in each group revealing significant differences. While only 23% of pregnant women reported frequent nightmares, this contrasts sharply with 43% in the control group. Additionally, those with depressive symptoms and greater dream engagement were more likely to have nightmares. The findings suggest that hormonal changes during gestation may reduce oneiric activity, supporting the continuity hypothesis that links depression with nightmare frequency.
Communications Psychology
April 28, 2026
Valentina Elce, Giorgia Bontempi, Serena Scarpelli et al.
Dreams are universal yet highly personal. By analyzing 3,366 reports of dreams and waking experiences from 207 adults collected between 2020 and 2024, along with demographic, cognitive, psychometric, and sleep measures, researchers found that dreams differ from waking thoughts: they are less self-referential and thought-centered, and more perceptual, dominated by visuo-spatial details, multiple characters, and bizarre events. Stable traits like attitude toward dreaming, mind-wandering propensity, and subjective sleep quality selectively influenced dream content. During the first 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, dreams from an independent dataset of 80 participants showed increased references to limitations and heightened emotional intensity, which gradually normalized over subsequent years. Stable individual traits and incidental experiences jointly shape dream semantics.
Journal of Sleep Research
April 1, 2026
Severin Ableidinger, Luigi De Gennaro, Sérgio Mota-Rolim et al.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, about 30% of people frequently knew they were dreaming (lucid dreaming), and roughly half of those (17%) could influence their dreams (lucid dreaming with agency). Female gender and anxiety symptoms were linked to less ability to influence dreams, while dream recall, nightmares, insomnia, dream enactment behavior, sleep vocalization, short and long COVID, and PTSD were linked to more ability. Older age, dream recall, nightmares, and anxiety were linked to lucid dreaming without agency, while short sleep, being an evening type, and short COVID were linked to less of it. The different patterns suggest lucid dreaming with and without agency may be distinct sleep states, and this is the first study showing COVID-19 and long COVID are associated with lucid dreaming.
Journal of Sleep Research
February 1, 2026
Courtney J Bolstad, Bjørn Bjorvatn, Ngan Yin Chan et al.
In a large multi-country survey of 15,854 adults, frequent dream recall (at least weekly) was reported by 54.0% of participants in 2021 and 51.1% in 2019. Frequent nightmares rose from 6.9% in 2019 to 11.0% in 2021, suggesting an increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dream recall showed a linear relationship with sleep duration, while nightmare frequency had a quadratic relationship. Prevalence rates varied by age, gender, and country. This is the first multi-continent study to provide these prevalence estimates across 16 countries, including some never studied before.
Current opinion in pulmonary medicine
November 1, 2024
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Luigi De Gennaro
Dreaming has recently become a topic of scientific research. This review updates current findings on dream studies, emphasizing recent research on the neural mechanisms of dreaming. It summarizes new evidence on the functional role of dreams, including insights from studies on dreams and nightmares during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent advances on the neural basis of mental activity during sleep have shifted towards dream-related phenomena, such as dream experiences in relation to parasomnias and hypnagogic hallucinations. Some findings are consistent with the main models explaining dream recall (continuity hypothesis; activation hypothesis), while some results contrast with the role of the parieto-occipital region in dream experience.
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2024
Courtney J Bolstad, Brigitte Holzinger, Serena Scarpelli et al.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, suicidal ideation was 2% lower overall than before, while nightmare frequency increased by 4.50%. Data from 9328 individuals across 16 countries showed that suicidal ideation decreased significantly in Austria, Sweden, and Bulgaria but rose non-significantly in Italy and Portugal. Participants with long-COVID reported higher rates of suicidal ideation (21.10%) than those with short-COVID (12.40%), though ideation did not differ by COVID-19 history alone. Nightmare frequency was higher in those with prior COVID-19 (14.50% vs. 10.70%), during active infection (23.00% vs. 8.10%), and in long-COVID (18.00% vs. 8.50%). Frequent nightmares during the pandemic increased the odds of suicidal ideation (OR = 1.
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
August 1, 2024
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Luigi De Gennaro et al.
Pregnancy is linked to changes in sleep and dreaming. A systematic review of 17 studies found that pregnant women tend to report more dreams and nightmares, and high dream recall is associated with poor sleep quality. Most dream content relates to pregnancy, reflecting waking concerns. Dreaming may help women psychologically prepare for childbirth and develop coping strategies for life after delivery.
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2023
Elisabetta Fasiello, Serena Scarpelli, Maurizio Gorgoni et al.
REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) involves the loss of muscle paralysis during REM sleep, causing people to act out dreams, which are often vivid and violent. This review systematically examines studies on dream recall in RBD, using both retrospective and prospective designs, to provide a comprehensive overview of qualitative and quantitative dream features. The work highlights that studying dreaming in RBD helps understand unique aspects of the disorder and reveals neurobiological, electrophysiological, and cognitive mechanisms of REM sleep and dreaming.
Journal of Clinical Medicine
October 28, 2022
Elisabetta Fasiello, Serena Scarpelli, Maurizio Gorgoni et al.
REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) involves the loss of normal muscle paralysis during REM sleep, causing people to act out their dreams. Patients with RBD report high dream recall frequency and vivid, often violent dream content. Isolated RBD (iRBD) is recognized as an early sign of neurodegeneration, often preceding α-synucleinopathies like Parkinson's disease. This narrative review synthesizes evidence on dream activity in RBD, compares it with other non-REM parasomnias, and examines how dream features in RBD associated with α-synucleinopathies might clarify the role of dreams in neurodegenerative processes.
Nature and Science of Sleep
January 1, 2022
Serena Scarpelli, Michael R Nadorff, Bjørn Bjorvatn et al.
People reported more dream activity during the pandemic than before it. Those who had COVID-19 reported significantly more nightmares during the pandemic than matched controls who had not had COVID-19, while dream recall frequency did not differ between the groups. COVID-19 participants also had higher anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptom scores, and lower quality of life and well-being scores than controls. Nightmare frequency was predicted by dream recall frequency, PTSD, anxiety, insomnia, COVID-19 severity, sleep duration, and age. The findings suggest that the more severely people were affected by COVID-19, the greater the impact on dream activity and quality of life.
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2021
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Anastasia Mangiaruga et al.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, a large Italian sample reported more frequent nightmares and dreams compared to a population-based sample. Predictors of high dream recall included young age, female gender, not having children, and sleep duration. High nightmare frequency was predicted by young age, female gender, changes in napping, sleep duration, intrasleep wakefulness, sleep problem index, anxiety, and depression. Higher emotional features of dream activity occurred in workers who stopped working, people with relatives or friends infected by or who died from COVID-19, and those who changed sleep habits. These findings support the continuity hypothesis linking daily experiences to sleep mentation and the arousal-retrieval model linking poor sleep to nightmares.